It was still evolving, moreover, in 1901 with the development of modern political parties and an established civil service. It was to be described in that year by James (later Viscount) Bryce, a politician and historian whom Victoria admired, as "a mass of precedents, carried in men's memories or recorded in writing, of dicta of lawyers or statesmen, of customs, usages, understandings and beliefs bearing upon the methods of government, together with a certain numbers of statutes ... nearly all of them presupposing and mixed up with precedents and customs, and all of them covered with a parasitic growth of legal decisions and political habits, apart from which the statutes would be almost unworkable, or at any rate quite different in their working from what they really are".
Victoria herself accepted the constitution -- and the place of the monarchy within the constitution as she saw them. She did not see it in terms of great forces ushering in democracy. For her the constitution rested on its inherent balances. There was a contrast here between Britain and many other European countries. When the historic link between Britain and Hanover was broken in 1837 -- there was no provision in Hanover for a female succession -- one of the first steps that her "wicked uncle", the Duke of Cumberland, took after ascending the throne of Hanover was to abrogate the constitution. By contrast Victoria not only accepted the British constitution, but through her experiences helped to shape it. By 1901 her memory was longer than most men's memories: including the great rivals Disraeli and Gladstone. Ten prime minister had served her. Now she could look back over two generations.
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